Brian Loftes, who started fishing at 10, has earned a living dragging the ocean for fluke, yellowtail and squid.
But these days he's spending time in the editing room, not the wheelhouse. The 42-year-old fisherman, an outspoken critic of federal fishery regulations, is working on his first documentary.
The title is telling: "Truth: Fishing Crisis or Government Mismanagement?"
Loftes, a third-generation seaman with a body builder's heft, is quick to point out the answer. "Mismanagement," he says.
Regulations are designed to restrict catches and protect endangered species. But the science is often flawed because researchers don't spend as much time at sea as fishermen do, says Loftes. When a stock rebounds, regulators are slow to note it.
"If people really knew what was going on, they would be shocked and appalled," says Loftes, who installed a satellite radio in his boat this week, while snow pelted the trawlers in Point Judith Harbor.
Take yellowtail, for instance.
The stock has rebounded, he says. But a federal regulation limits his catch to 250 pounds a day. "I can catch that in 15 minutes," says Loftes, who fishes 20 miles offshore. "How can I make a living that way?"
Not everyone agrees with Loftes.
State and federal officials say regulations are needed to ensure the survival of some species.
Two months ago, a group of scientists warned that about 70 percent of the world's fisheries are over-exploited or have already crashed.
But worldwide regulations aren't equal, says Loftes, captain of the trawler Damariscotta.
Fishermen in other countries face few or no restrictions, he says, "while in the U.S., we have the most restrictions, the largest number of closed fishing grounds, and the fewest number of days we can fish."
That's hurting local fishermen. Some lost their boats last year, he says.
"Some of the stocks have come back, to record levels," he says. "But we're unable to harvest them. I thought that was the whole point, to rebuild the stock so we could fish."
As part of his hour-long film, Loftes has interviewed a dozen scientists and fishermen from around the country. He hopes to finish it next month. Dana Nugent, a media supervisor at the University of Rhode Island, is helping.
Filmmaking is a long shot for Loftes, whose background is the sea. Both his grandfathers fished. His father died on a fishing boat.
Loftes, from South Kingstown, R.I. fished while still in school, and bought a boat at 19.
At first, he could fish where he wanted -- and for what he wanted. Eventually, he swapped a big boat for smaller one and started fishing closer to home.
But a few years ago, regulators cut back on the amount of codfish and monkfish he could catch.
Then, in 2007, Loftes joined the Rhode Island Fishermen's Alliance and seven other fishermen in a suit against the state Department of Environmental Management and its director.
The state's lobster conservation plan unfairly shut out some fishermen, the group said.
All of a sudden, says Loftes, "I'm going to the State House and to regulatory meetings, when I should be fishing. I need a political science degree ... because the laws are so crazy and unbalanced."
Among the fishermen featured in "Truth" is Sig Hansen, the Seattle-based captain of the fishing vessel Northwestern. Hansen has appeared frequently in the documentary television series Deadliest Catch.
The movie urges fishermen to unite so they can deal more effectively with state and federal regulators.
E-mail Paul Davis of The Providence Journal at pdavis(at)projo.com.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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